Brynn Larsen has always been competitive.
After a three-sport career at Oconto Falls High School and playing softball at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota, Larsen was in search of her next challenge.
“I love basketball, softball, volleyball, all those sports, but I just can’t play them as good as I used to when I was younger and in shape,” Larsen said. “I had to find something that was new and different.”
Larsen, a 2008 OFHS graduate who was back in her hometown for the 2013-14 school year helping coach, decided to purchase a bicycle in May for exercise. Yoga classmate Ann Senn mentioned she should try a triathlon, which includes swimming, biking and running.
“Before I knew it I was buying a wet suit and all the stuff for my bike and for running, and I signed up for the Green Bay triathlon,” Larsen said.
Two triathlons later, she is hooked.
“It’s been a wonderful experience,” Larsen said. “It’s been a little different than high school sports because you’re competing against a 40-year-old next to you or a 60-year-old guy. You’re competing against them but you’re not type of thing.”
Larsen didn’t train much beforehand, but she’s an active person and figured she’d be OK for her first triathlon.
“No. 1, she’s young. No. 2, she’s competitive and has pretty good drive,” Senn said. “I think that she was in pretty good shape. She might not have felt like she was very well trained in doing triathlons per say, but she’s trained in that she’s been athletic for most of her life. It’s easy for her to pick up athletic things no matter what it is.”
Larsen, 24, entered the Aurora BayCare Triathlon in Green Bay on June 1 in the sprint individual division (400-meter swim, 17-mile bike ride and 5K run). She competed like a natural, finishing in 1 hour, 34 minutes and 37 seconds to place third in her age division.
“You could train forever, but you’d never know what to expect in that first race,” Larsen said. “You don’t ever train, swim, bike, run in the same day, you do all different things, so when you come to race day you’re doing all those quicker.”
Completing the triathlon didn’t go as smoothly as Larsen had hoped.
“I got off the bike, and it’s a different position your legs are going, and I felt like I was still on the bike and my legs weighed 1,000 pounds,” Larsen said. “I struggled at about Mile 2 (of the running stage).”
However, Larsen finished strong and had her mom and best friends cheering her on the entire way.
“They were hugging me and saying, ‘This is so inspiring. You inspire me,’” Larsen said. “They all want to eventually get a bike and do a triathlon someday, so that made me feel very, very proud.”
Senn, who has competed in triathlons for about five years, has been amazed by what Larsen has done in just a short amount of time.
“She was admittedly very nervous. But I know she is very competitive, so I had no doubt she was going to do fairly well,” Senn said. “I was surprised because it was her first that she did as well as she did. I didn’t doubt her ability, just because her lack of experience in triathlons. … I knew that because she placed in her first one she was going to get hooked.”
Two weeks after her first triathlon, Larsen signed up for her second, the High Cliff Triathlon in Sherwood, on June 14.
Larsen said she learned a lot after the first triathlon on how to train and what to eat and drink during competition. She switched from water to Gatorade and ate energy beans during the biking portion of the second triathlon.
Larsen did even better her second time out, placing second in her age group on a longer sprint course (400-meter swim, 22-mile bike ride and 5K run) and finished in 1:45.29.
“I kept hearing my dad tell me, ‘Think light on your feet,’” Larsen said. “The ending part of the run was easy because it was downhill. You start hearing people cheer and the cowbells going. Your adrenaline goes and you just kick it into high gear until you’re finished.”
Larsen — who recently landed a job teaching health at Waupaca Middle School and physical education at Waupaca High School and as the varsity girls basketball coach — doesn’t have any plans of slowing down on competing in triathlons.
“I’d like to do two or three more by the end of September or so,” Larsen said.
Next summer, Larsen wants to go even harder and faster.
“I would like to step it up and do the next distances, where all the distances pretty much double,” Larsen said. “I have a lot of work to do.”
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